What does it take to build a strong team culture in product innovation?

Many innovative companies, confident in merging technology and experiences, often struggle with an abundance of ideas but a lack of evaluation structure. Prior to designing Samsung's FRAME TV, we also introduced an evaluation framework for experience-led concepts. Our goal was to help leadership understand the WHY, HOW, and WHAT behind the ideas—why an idea worked, how it synergized with their technology, and what it contributed to their roadmap. Initiating the alignment process by defining guardrails upfront was fundamental. This ensured that when presenting designs later, they closely adhered to our shared vision. Without proactive alignment and guardrails, the end product could have deviated significantly from our intended outcome.

The best teams are the ones where team members bring different and complementary skills and perspectives. This leads to normal conflict and one of the tests of the team is whether they can navigate that conflict to find a sweet spot where the team is a safe place to express dissent, but when the team makes a decision there's full commitment to that decision and clarity about responsibilities related to execution. A diverse team will arrive at more creative solutions and will have a stronger skill set for delivering those solutions.

A key to an experimental and learning culture is protected time for the team to explore. There's a difference between managerial and administrative tasks and creative tasks. They require different calendar styles - creativity needs blank spaces, it requires sparks and encouragement from leaders. Sometimes experimentation and learning look like repeated failures, but when they are matched with commitment to an organization's mission, they will yield results. The book The Design Of Business has a lot to say on this process and is something I'd recommend as a framework for understanding how businesses move from experimentation to optimization.

While some work is a sprint, a career is a marathon. Doing excellent work requires treating yourself like an endurance athlete - sometimes you have to grind through hard training sessions, but you have to give yourself time to recover. That means getting an adequate amount of rest, unplugging and doing things that bring you joy outside of your work. It means making lots of small decisions to ensure you feel good and are healthy. Little things like drinking enough water or addressing little "pinches" in relationships before they turn into larger issues go a long way to smoothing the path ahead. One question I ask a lot is "what can I do today to make my future life easier?" Sometimes the answer is working harder, sometimes it's resting.

1. Goal: defining a clear case of need 2. Relationships: honoring every inputs 3. Tools: having seamless collaboration toolkit 4. Risk appetite: trying new things are encouraged and rewarded 5. Reward: recognition of innovation 6. Funding: ideally a separate small Funding pot for risky ideas

Para construir una sólida cultura de innovación en productos, promuevo un entorno donde la creatividad y la experimentación son clave. Establezco una visión inspiradora y metas claras para motivar al equipo. Fomento la comunicación abierta, donde todas las ideas son valoradas. Incentivo la toma de riesgos y veo los fracasos como oportunidades de aprendizaje. La formación continua mantiene al equipo actualizado en tendencias y tecnologías. Celebramos logros y aprendemos de errores, creando un ambiente de mejora constante. Estas prácticas fomentan una cultura centrada en la innovación y el éxito de los productos.